"Most people support the kids," said Cinda Fortune, as she filed a woman's nails Monday at her salon on Main Street. "They are kids and they have poor judgment. They are not criminals."

CANON CITY, CO - NOVEMBER 9: Fremont County school district superintendent George Welsh talks about the recent sexting scandal that officials believed involved hundreds of students at Canon City High School in Canon City, Colorado, on November 9, 2015. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post) (THE DENVER POST | Helen H. Richardson)

Teen sexting presents a difficult legal question for communities in Colorado and nationwide that are forced to weigh the seriousness and the need to protect young people from a crippling felony conviction.

Under a strict reading of Colorado law, any teen who takes, shares or receives a nude photo of someone under the age of 18 — even consensually — has committed a child pornography offense, legal experts say.

Elsewhere around Colorado, charges can depend on which jurisdiction is prosecuting a teen.

"It's definitely varied," said Amy Hasinoff, an assistant professor of communications at the University of Colorado in Denver.

Hasinoff says studies show roughly a few hundred teens each year are charged across the nation with child pornography for their involvement in consensual exchanges of nude photos.

"The problem is we kind of lack a middle range of laws that deal with what's actually happening, which is really a privacy violation," she said. "Child porn laws are not meant to deal with a privacy violation, but really a horrific form of abuse."

Many people in Cañon City, a town of 13,000 southwest of Colorado Springs, feel strongly their teens shouldn't be made out as sex offenders — a label that comes with a child pornography conviction.

"I think that it's something all teenagers do," said Brooke Otto, a barista at a Cañon City coffee shop. "Felony charges for this kind of thing? That's rough."

Prosecutors in Jefferson, Adams, Douglas and Arapahoe counties have been working for years to find a middle ground in sexting cases, using diversion programs and education initiatives.

"We are careful and cautious that we have no involvement of the courts so there are not any kind of consequences for the young girl or young boy going forward," said Peter Weir, Jefferson County's district attorney.

Weir's office has a diversion program that over the past five years has educated 148 juveniles — spilt evenly between boys and girls — implicated in sexting cases. The initiative's classes last roughly six weeks and involve parents.

The highly confidential program began after Jefferson County saw its first sexting case in 2009. Authorities say there has been no known recidivism among its participants.

"The goal is not to prosecute," Weir said. "The goal is to educate."

District Attorney George Brauchler, who covers Arapahoe and Douglas counties, says his office is rolling out a similar pilot program in the coming weeks.

"There's no consistency between departments as to what to do in these cases," Brauchler said of the 23 law enforcement agencies in his district. "'It is, by definition, child pornography, (but) there are other issues at stake."

He hopes his program, which will begin with the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office and police in Greenwood Village, will address what he sees as legislative shortfalls to address sexting.

"There aren't a lot of tools to work with," he said. "I want more tools that give me the opportunity to accomplish better outcomes. You've got 22 district attorneys offices out there trying to handle these situations without dropping the hammer on these kids."

"My proposal is to have a misdemeanor charge for juveniles with discretion for the DA to charge a felony if it is particularly egregious," Willett told The Denver Post's editorial board this week.

In Fremont County, where District Attorney Tom LeDoux is overseeing the Cañon City scandal, there have been roughly a dozen sexting cases referred to his office in the past seven years. Those cases were dealt with in a variety of ways, from not filing criminal charges to utilizing diversion programs to filing juvenile petitions.

"The district attorney's office basically has unlimited discretion on how to handle these cases," LeDoux told The Post in an interview Monday. "We have every intent of exercising that discretion appropriately for our community."

LeDoux says Cañon City should "just relax and not jump to conclusions" about what consequences students might face.

"We have no interest in causing lifelong (consequences)," he added, explaining an investigation is still in its infancy.

CANON CITY, CO - NOVEMBER 9: The small southwestern town of Canon City is at the center of a sexting scandal that officials believe involes hundreds of students from Canon City High School in Canon City, Colorado, on November 9, 2015. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post) (THE DENVER POST | Helen H. Richardson)

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